The rich started taking advantage of the poor since the 16th century, when is agreed that capitalism was born (I would like to know what brilliant economic system ruled before that). According to the director's view and people interviewed for this documentary, colonialism is responsible for the division between north and south that we see today, and that's when capitalism starts. All the fault falls upon Spain, Portugal, Holland and England (but wasn't the US a former British colony? What about Australia? Maybe they were lucky they did not have any gold).
The message is correct: there is a huge gap between rich and poor. The system is a failure, as appropriately states John Perkins. But the director committed the mistake of showing less well-founded words from Amartya Sen and more of labor unionists and most-probably corrupt politicians of emerging countries, that use their speech to manipulate less-educated masses. There is much information with lack of basis in this doc. 1) Brazil does not have 50 million people starving but 13 million, as data from 2004. 2) India and China are not emerging economies because of communist protectionism (as mentions Cliff Cobb); on the contrary, they boomed only after they opened their markets. And 3) Germany is not the largest coffee exporter in the world. Those are things I knew, but because of that, I was skeptical about all the other information in the documentary.
Talk about poverty. But use the right data.
The message is correct: there is a huge gap between rich and poor. The system is a failure, as appropriately states John Perkins. But the director committed the mistake of showing less well-founded words from Amartya Sen and more of labor unionists and most-probably corrupt politicians of emerging countries, that use their speech to manipulate less-educated masses. There is much information with lack of basis in this doc. 1) Brazil does not have 50 million people starving but 13 million, as data from 2004. 2) India and China are not emerging economies because of communist protectionism (as mentions Cliff Cobb); on the contrary, they boomed only after they opened their markets. And 3) Germany is not the largest coffee exporter in the world. Those are things I knew, but because of that, I was skeptical about all the other information in the documentary.
Talk about poverty. But use the right data.
Tell Your Friends